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PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 3/12/2008 6:09 PM (GMT -6)

following on the heals of... http://www.opentheismboard.org/default.aspx?f=10&m=96985&p=5

Why does the verse say "If you abide in me and my words abide in you?"

I'm asking that while noticing that we abide in him. He can be abided in. His word can abide in us. And, perhaps, he does not abide in us. I'm not saying that last part is true or false; I'm just trying to notice the details of the verse! If the last part is 'meant' it could reflect that while the Spirit is "everywhere present and fills all things" that we cannot 'circumscribe' (contain by virtue of being more expansive) God.

So far that feels comfortable as an explanation -- it is asymmetrical.

(o)

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 3/12/2008 6:10 PM (GMT -6)

Did I get the verse right?

I think I'll read John Piper a bit, and see what he's paying attention to:

January 3, 1993 IF MY WORDS ABIDE IN YOU . . . (John 15:7)

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will and it shall be done for you. What is the most urgent need in the church of the Western ...
www.soundofgrace.com/piper93/01-03-93.htm - 17k

Several years ago at a North American seminary, fifty students planning to go overseas in ministry for the summer were interviewed for their suitability. Only three--six percent--could testify to regular quiet times of reading the Bible and devoting themselves to prayer. We assume that our pastors and missionaries are the models--we would be shocked I am afraid.

(o)

Post Edited (Spinning Pot-spinner) : 3/12/2008 6:15:04 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 3/12/2008 6:20 PM (GMT -6)

TNIV

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because servants do not know their master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other."

------------------

The Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. :-)

Whoever knows and recognizes how near God’s Kingdom is to him may say with Jacob, “God is in this place, and I knew it not.”
Meister Eckhart, "The Nearness of the Kingdom"

Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the Kingdom of God is within you.

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 3/12/2008 6:28 PM (GMT -6)

John 17

"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."

Whoever knows and recognizes how near God’s Kingdom is to him may say with Jacob, “God is in this place, and I knew it not.”
Meister Eckhart, "The Nearness of the Kingdom"

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 3/12/2008 9:51 PM (GMT -6)

I ask a sensual man, “Who are you?” and he replies, “I am I,” and he thinks of his body.

I ask a thinking man, “Who are you?” and he replies, “I see two sides in myself and I make my way between them, associating first with one and then the other,” and he is thinking of his instinctive and conscious soul.

I ask a spiritual man, “Who are you?” and he replies, “There is someone in the depths of my soul. I stretch out my hand to grasp him but see that to do that I would need arms longer than the universe. Ask him who I am.”

St. Nicholai of Zicha (Velimirovich)

http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2007/12/04/who-am-i/

Whoever knows and recognizes how near God’s Kingdom is to him may say with Jacob, “God is in this place, and I knew it not.”
Meister Eckhart, "The Nearness of the Kingdom"

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